Grey Crystal World
by ShadesxofxPurple
Summary: Set just after Book 6... A defeated Draco comes to terms with the punishment for his mistake. An insight into the heart of a Malfoy... please Read and Review!


Hope you enjoy it! Please review!

Disclaimer: Not mine. sobs IT ISN'T MINE, DAMMIT! Believe me, if it was you'd know about it ;-)

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He looked at the wall.

The wall was blank and featureless, an empty torch-bracket set high on the right. It was a dullish grey colour flecked with stains where things had smashed against it. He thought he saw a bloodstain in the lower left hand corner. It was a simple wall, a plain wall. A wall for endings. A wall for nothingness. A wall for pain. It was a wall that he could look at without starting to shake.

He knew that if he pulled his gaze away from the wall to his hands, which weren't in handcuffs but still he couldn't move from his frozen sides… the shakes would start. And if he turned his head to look at the wooden door that wasn't locked but he couldn't leave out of… the shakes would worsen until his entire body trembled in spasms of fear.

He couldn't shake. He couldn't tremble. He couldn't think of what might come through the unlocked wooden door. To do so would show fear. And Malfoys weren't allowed to fear.

He knew that they were waiting on purpose… waiting for him to crack under the pressure of the featureless room and the bloodstained walls and the single light bulb above his head and his own, unimaginable apprehension. And he knew that they were doing a damn good job of it. His head pounded. The plain grey walls blurred as his eyesight dulled and refocused, product of the hours he had spent standing there, alone, staring at the walls. The darkness called him, its sultry call echoing impossibly into the tiny room. He wanted to faint. He refused to faint. He wouldn't faint. To do so would show his weakness. And Malfoys weren't allowed to show weakness.

His vision cleared and his iron gaze steadied itself on the featureless walls. Grey was easy. Grey as the colour of the walls. He could see grey. Grey was easy. Grey was the colour of his eyes. Grey was the colour of his soul. He liked grey. Grey was easy. The long tired hours of grey walls were beginning to affect his steel exterior, penetrating through to his brain, infusing it. Grey. He felt like jumping and singing… Greygreygreygrey! GreygreygreygreygreyGREY! He felt like screaming and laughing and dying and crying… but he wouldn't. He couldn't. Malfoys weren't allowed to go scream or dance or cry. Malfoys weren't allowed to go mad.

Eventually his confused brain registered colour. Red. The insane urge to dance left him. He wasn't mad. Too many people had died in this room for him to go mad. The bloodstain on the wall… he could remember when that had happened now. That man he had talked to, he had made a mistake and been taken away… That muggle captured on a raid had been brought here… That old friend from his childhood whose parents hadn't fully complied with their lords wishes… they had all been brought here… and none of them had come out. He was resigned to his fate now, almost. But he could still imagine the screams that this cell had heard as they had been dragged to their death… Poor souls, going down the path that he would soon follow. The thought almost made him pity them. Almost. Malfoys weren't allowed to pity.

The door opened. His gaze remained blankly on the wall. He was too far gone to say anything now. Too far gone to do anything now. Too far gone to care now. He had made his mistake and now he was going to pay for it. Two figures entered his tiny grey room. He didn't speak. He didn't question. He just turned to face the arrivals with a slight smile etching its way across his features, as simple as if they were coming for afternoon tea. The time for childish fear or anger or hatred was over now. There was no time for any more mistakes. Besides, Malfoys weren't allowed to make mistakes.

One of the two figures said something, he didn't understand the words. He was too far locked inside his own little grey, crystal world of acceptance to understand speech. This was why when the curse hit him, when a thousand little red-hot daggers stabbed themselves into his flesh and twisted themselves around and the stained grey walls were spattered with droplets of his own blood, when all he wanted to do was scream and curse and yell and collapse with the complete, consuming pain… he merely stopped smiling. His stone figure stood straight and tall as if he couldn't fall even if he wanted to. Maybe he couldn't. He didn't know. All he knew was that Malfoys weren't allowed to feel pain.

Because even though he had trembled when given his assignment, he was still a Malfoy.

Even though he had fainted as Snape had dragged him away from the school, he was still a Malfoy.

Even though he had raved and cursed when he was first put into this grey cell, he was still a Malfoy.

Even though that necklace had never reached where it was supposed to reach, he was still a Malfoy.

Even though he had wept and cried as his father had hit him, he was still a Malfoy.

And even though he had looked into the calm blue eyes of an old man and been unable to end his life, he was still a Malfoy.

He was still a Malfoy.

And that was why the two figures facing him now gave a small, respectful salute, and why, as the taller one raised his wand, the stone figure in the centre of the room felt to his surprise, words forcing their way past his icy still lip…

"Thank you."

Because he had made a mistake; he had feared and pitied and felt pain when he was a Malfoy. And Malfoys were not allowed to forgive mistakes. Which is why he was about to pay for his. Which was why as the jet of green light flashed towards him, he never even flinched. Which was why, as he collapsed to the grey floor, his last wry thoughts inside his grey, crystal world were…

'_Father would be proud of me…'_

Because, if there was one thing that Malfoys were allowed to do, they were allowed to die.

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Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it! I love Draco, he's a really interesting character (plus he's CUTE) and I like writing him. As always, please review! It makes me so happy 

Love forever (xDelusionalxDotx)


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